


Treasure

by Scrunchles



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pirate, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cheese, Historical Inaccuracy, M/M, Merscout
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2015-11-06
Packaged: 2018-04-30 06:32:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5153804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scrunchles/pseuds/Scrunchles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on the prompt Pirate!Demo/Any - my treasure map was on your skin.</p><p>Demoman's cabin boy-cum-lover is more than he appears.  Between meddling shipmates and the weather, they're forced to part and only Demoman's bullheaded determination and devotion can bring them back together in the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Treasure

The wake-up bell rang before the sun rose, muted slightly by the fog, but more than clear enough to awake the vessel's crew.  Men in red tunics or without and pants of varying shades of brown spilled out of their quarters, setting about their tasks and relieving the night watch of their duties.

 

In the first mate's quarters, a pair of dark lips pressed against a pale back, resuming where they had left off the previous night, kissing and sucking one last mark onto his sleeping lover.  When that didn't wake the young man, he smirked and shifted over to a small cluster of love bites right on top of one of the kid's ticklish spots, the upper edge of the dip in his back.

 

"Nnnn..." Well, a noise and a little wiggle was better than sleeping.  He continued to trace the spot with his lips, occasionally allowing his tongue to slip out and lap at the marks.  "Demo..." The young man whined.

 

"Time to get up, Scout..." He finally said, wiggling up to attack his upper back and then his neck.

 

"You leave one of those bites on my neck again, an' I'll fuckin' punch your face in, I swear to God..." Scout grumbled against the lone pillow.

 

Demo chuckled and gave the lad's neck a soft nip before pulling away.  He could already hear the deckhands moving about all over the deck and would get a tongue-lashing from the captain if he stayed in bed any longer.  No matter how tempting it was.

 

"Well, get your ass up and go get us both breakfast."  Demo told him, smacking his rear as he sat up on the edge of his bed and reached for their boots.

 

Scout latched onto his back, wrapping his arms around his neck and his legs around his waist.  “Yessir… whatever you say, mister first mate, sir…”  He breathed against Demo’s ear, laughing when the man rolled his shoulders and turned his head to get at Scout’s lips and tongue.

 

“Feck—no.”  Demo said firmly shoving Scout away with a hand on his face, young, eager tongue and lips still searching for purchase.  “Go!"  He chuckled at the groping hands and had to get a hold of himself before giving the younger man a frown and firmly shoving him toward the door.  " _Now_ , you little Siren!  And don’t forget your shirt.”  He snatched it up and tossed it at the kid.

 

Scout snickered as he pulled the faded and patched garment over his head before blowing Demo a kiss and running out barefooted.  Demo sighed as he pulled his boots on and left Scout’s by the door for later.  After a brief glance in the mirror to make sure that Scout hadn’t tied his dreads into knots or tried braiding them again (he only needed to be questioned about why his hair was tied up to look like unmentionables  _once_  before he started to get paranoid every time he walked out the door), he was out the door and up the short flight of stairs to the deck. 

 

“DEMO!”  The captain boomed, right behind him as soon as he hit the deck.  The first mate flinched slightly at the loud bray and turned to meet his fate.  The captain’s face was already livid and the sun wasn’t even blinding Demo’s good eye yet.

 

“Aye, Cap’n?”  Demo asked, offering a loose salute that came away in a showy stretch and yawn.

 

“WHY ARE YOU THE LAST MEMBER OUT ON DECK?”  Captain Soldier’s fist thumped against Demo’s bowed out stomach and he wheezed, doubling forward to protect his slight paunch and frowning up at him.

 

“Why I was just minding my cabin boy, sir.”  Demo told him, figuring it was as honest as he could get.

 

Soldier harrumphed and adjusted his very showy bicorn with the largest and fluffiest white feather Demoman had ever encountered stuck in it.  He’d been part of the crew for almost five years and he’d never seen the man with any other feather or any other hat.  It was eerie, really.  “And what did he do  _now_  that warrants ‘minding’?”  Captain Soldier asked, crossing his arms.  “You know I disapprove of you taking him under you.”

 

Demoman choked back a smile and a laugh.  “Aye, Cap’n… you tell me ‘most every day.”  He sighed good-naturedly and clapped the man on the back before excusing himself.  “I’d better get with Sniper on the course corrections.”  He said as Scout approached with two handfuls of breakfast—two biscuits in one hand and a sausage in the other.  He kept his face schooled as the kid approached and forced a scowl.   “Oh, so you’re going to put your hands all over my breakfast, huh?”  He asked, stepping forward and grabbing one of the two biscuits before turning his back on the kid.

 

“Yeah.  Ain’t any plates clean.”  Scout replied.  “Pyro says her scully maid’s under the weather an’ you can deal with it.”

 

“Then  _you_  go feckin’ wash ‘em.”  Demo sneered over his shoulder before continuing toward the shaded helm and plopping at the table set up there.

 

“Bein’ a mite hard on the kiddo aren’t ya?”  Sniper asked, not glancing up as he studied the charts before him.

 

“You know the answer to that.”  Demo said through a mouthful of crumbling biscuit.  In reality, Scout needed more to eat, more protein and fat than what he was getting.  Demo couldn’t find a good excuse to intentionally give Scout more, but he’d bitch and groan about something or other every now and then to get his lover an extra scrap.  Occasionally he’d be able to bring some snacks back to his room, but Madam Pyro kept her food stores under strict watch.

 

“Don’t get your mess all over me work, y’bloody Scot.”  Sniper’s grumbles fell on deaf ears as Demo caught sight of a dark cloud a fair twenty kilometers away.  He watched it for a moment before his attention turned back down to the maps.

 

“How’s the weather today?”  He asked before shoving the rest of his breakfast in his mouth to stop Sniper’s whining. 

 

The rangy man looked up from what he was doing and sniffed the air before shrugging.  “All sunshine from here on to the evening reckon.”  He told Demo.

 

“Mmm…” The Scot nodded before turning his attention back to helping their navigator solidify their route to the next set of islands they were to explore.

 

:::::

 

Sweat stood out in an amorphous circle against Scout’s lower back and, as the day crawled on, and the young man worked upon the hot deck, it traveled up between his shoulder blades, taking no time at all to dampen the entire back of his shirt with humidity and hard work.  Demo eyed him greedily from the crow’s nest, lounging about and occasionally looking through his telescope at the waves surrounding them.  There wasn’t anything for several hundred kilometers aside from clouds and whatever beasties dwelt beneath the water.  Sometimes, more than the adventure of it all, he just enjoyed being able to relax.

 

Soldier’s voice boomed out a call for shifts to change and lunch to commence.  Demo watched the members file toward the galley, most loudly expressing their general agreement to eat out on the deck in the nice weather.

 

“IF YOU ATTRACT SEAGULLS TO MY SHIP, I WILL CUT YOU UP AND FEED YOU TO THEM MYSELF, IS THAT UNDERSTOOD?  I HATE.  BIRDS.”  Soldier raged at the crew.

 

Demo chuckled to himself as he reluctantly tucked his telescope into his belt and climbed back down to the deck before the crazed captain could do any real harm to his crew.  “S’alright, Cap’n, I’ll make sure they don’t do anything stupid.”  Demo told him, resting a heavy hand on Scout’s shoulder.  “Hop to the front of the line.   I expect a plate this meal, y’kin?”  He always hated being such a bastard to the kid out on the deck, but… well, an affair with a rescued prisoner called for certain precedence. 

 

“Aye, mister first mate, sir.”  The corner of Scout’s lips turned up a bit, and Demo could still feel the breath on his ear from that morning.

 

“Less lip, more wading through these yonces.”  Demo snapped, cuffing the back of his head as gently as he could before turning to walk away.

 

Only a few crew members had come to sit beneath his protective gaze before Scout returned with a split lip and a cheeky grin.

 

“Bloody hell what’d you do now?”  Demo growled, though his eye was soft with concern. 

 

“Aw, y’know, pissed a few guys off cuttin’.  Gave ‘em better’n this, you’ll know ‘em when you see ‘em.”  Scout told him, not about to incriminate himself to the crew by being a snitch.

 

“I will.”  Demo agreed, snatching the plate that was offered to him.

 

The culprits knew better than to come around, and by the time lunch was over, a few crew-mates were swinging out into the calm waters and climbing back up onto the crawling vessel eagerly.

 

Scout leaned against the railing next to Demo, and the first mate wished he could reach out to hold the younger man’s hand, pull him against his side, or maybe run his fingers through his unkempt hair.

 

“Hey, Scooter!” Both pirates looked in the direction of the voice.  The stocky boatswain grinned up at them from the water and rolled lazily onto his back before waving the kid toward him.  "How come you never swim with us?"  He asked, pulling a face when Scout backed away from the rail a bit, as if he were afraid the man's motion had some sort of secret ability to drag him into the ocean.

 

" 'Cause I  _can't_  swim, man!" Scout called back, putting himself slightly behind Demo.

 

He looked back at the kid with an affectionate smile and looked back down at Dell when he laughed at the news.

 

"Why in tarnation are you on an everlovin' boat, then, son?" He called up, but got no reply.

 

"Ach, leave m'boy alone now, Dell!  He doesn't wanna swim, don't mean he doesn't like the sun on his face and the salty wind."  He called down to the tinkerer before pushing off the rail and retreating with Scout to make him more comfortable.

 

The Quartermaster, affectionately nicknamed Heavy and called nothing else, was talking to Sniper up at the helm.  Demo smiled and sent Scout back to work, telling him to take a break at the next shift call and meet him in his cabin.

 

"Heavy."  Demo greeted the giant as he mounted the steps and moved to stand next to him and scrutinize the paper he was looking at.

 

"Little Sniper says it will rain in evening. But only small... Eh... Squall.  Like baby sound.  We will sail through.  You will be in cabin, make sure you listen for bell if we need you."  Heavy told him, clapping a hand on his shoulder and causing Demo to lean on the desk.

 

"Yeah, let's hope it's just a little one, eh? Can't have my beauty sleep disturbed, y'know."  

 

Sniper snorted before clearing his throat and going back to his calculations.

 

"Oh, aye, somethin' funny you wanna say to my face, boyo?"  Demo asked with a playful glare.

 

"Nah, mate... Just... We know what your 'beauty sleep' is, an'... Well, Scout'd probably be thankful if it  _was_  interrupted."  Sniper told him, though he didn't know exactly what line he’d crossed

 

Demo's face dropped into a dangerous scowl and he placed a large scarred hand on Sniper's map of interest.  "Do I need to remind you why they call me 'Demo,' Sniper?"  He asked, and he could feel Heavy tensing beside him just in case he needed to break something up.

 

"Nah, Demo."  The man offered him a careful smile.  "None of my business what you do.  Whether it's what  _he_  wants--"

 

"Sniper, look at charts."  Heavy rumbled dangerously.

 

Sniper's eyes broke away from Demo's single one and he offered the large man an apologetic grin before turning it to Demo, more than a little less sincere.  "Sorry for buttin' in, mate."

 

"Bloody better  _well_  be."  Demo growled, though he was less likely to blast a hole in the man now.

 

Sniper cleared his throat and glanced up at Heavy before going back to the items on the desk, motioning to the route he'd mapped out.  "Right, so if we stay the course with these corrections, we should make it to a quiet night and won't end up a day's time toward the Caribbean before I can put us back on point."

 

"Great."  Demo turned on his heel and walked away, though he knew that they weren't yet done.  

 

He headed for the stores below deck, not bothering to put up a pretense for those who passed him.  Of course he was going for the Scrumpy stores.  Why else would he be down there? And he never did it with a smile.

 

He took three bottles just to make sure he was covered, one in each hand and another gripped under his arm as he walked quickly.  Down the hall, up the stairs, across the deck and down the short flight to the officers' quarters set aside from the crew's.

 

He shut the door behind him and set the two bottles he intended to tide him the rest of the evening on his desk before unplugging the one he still had in his hand.  He was feeling better after half of the bottle, and slowed a bit before standing and, deeming himself less likely to blow up the whole bloody ship, took another swallow before switching to a full bottle and heading out to resume his duties aboard the ship.

 

He returned to the helm in better spirits, and Sniper didn’t say another word about Scout. Heavy had probably had a discussion with him during Demo’s absence, and the presence of the man’s bottle, a weapon he was more proficient in than Sniper’s swordsmanship, was also an easy deterrent from unsavory conversations.

 

Once the three had parsed out the route and their tentative plan for the next day and how much closer to their goal they would be, he left to supervise a section of the crew working on sail manipulation with Engie.  He drank and leaned mostly, not paying attention at all before moving to a different place and drinking and leaning again.  He tried to avoid Sniper, but always seemed to catch the man with his eyes up and a simmering frown on his face.

 

When Demo returned to his room, a light rain had already started and the wind was beginning to pick up.  They had already made adjustments to the sails, and as long as it was just a little wind and rain, they would be fine without him until morning.  Not that he cared at that particular moment.

 

He set the empty bottle in a bin in the corner and took up the half-empty one he hadn't finished.  He glugged another half of that down before plopping down on his bed and flinging an arm across his eyes with a groan.  The constant tension with Sniper during their shift had been stressful, and all he wanted to do was sleep and drink and maybe forget their conversation by tomorrow morning. 

               

He'd drifted off by the time Scout came in soaking wet, and awoke to the bottle being taken from his hand. 

 

"Who pissed you off this time?" Scout asked, pushing his hand away when Demo tried to keep the near-empty bottle.  He wiped his clinging hair out of his face as he walked over to put it in the bin of empties.

 

"Nothing." Demo told him, but he couldn’t dissuade his lover, and Demo soon had a lap full of Scout and a pair of chapped lips caressing the untrimmed edges of his goatee.

 

"I didn't asked what happened, I asked who--" 

 

Demo cut Scout off by yanking him down into a kiss and rolling them over to pin the lad beneath him.  Scout went limp and kissed back eagerly, his hands gripping Demo's hair and twirling one of the braids around his index finger.

 

"I said it was nothing.  Nobody... I'm not mad 'nymore.  Yer here, yer mine, aye?  I'm happy."  Demo told him, not giving him a chance to reply before he was kissing him again.

 

The last little rigidity that Scout had had melted away and his arms twined around Demo's neck, tugging him closer and tilting his head to allow the man to get deeper.

 

It wasn't until Scout began to arch his hips up against Demo's and his breathing became needier that Demo began to have his doubts and he pulled back, panting and petting Scout's shaggy mop of hair before finally speaking his mind.

 

"You want this, right?" He asked, voice soft and tinged with a certain wariness, like he didn't know if his entire world would crash down if Scout told him no.

 

"What?"

 

"You want..." Demo cleared his throat and licked his lips nervously.  "You want this...?" He motioned to them, bodies entwined.

 

"Of course I do."  His hands, once soft and pale but now calloused and dark from the hard work he did on the ship, took Demo's cheeks and pulled him up to press a kiss to his lips.  "What's goin' on? Why would--?"

 

"It's... It's nothin', love."  Demo flushed, feeling immediately daft for taking stock in what Sniper had said.  He didn't know the first thing about their relationship.  He thought that Scout was still a prisoner turned cabin boy.  He thought that Demoman had his way with the unwilling kid every night.

 

"It was just... Something Sniper... Said..." Demoman admitted reluctantly.  The look that Scout gave him told him that he wouldn't let it go that easy and he rubbed the back of his neck with a sigh.  Rolling off of Scout to lie on his back and stare up at the ceiling, he swallowed and took a deep breath.  “He said that… this, what you and I do when we’re alone, that you don’t want it… implied I’m takin’ advantage of you and… well, you’re not exactly in a place to say no, yeah?”  Demo swallowed and his cheeks reddened with a rush of blood.  He awaited his dressing down for listening to Sniper's bollocks, keeping his eyes turned away from Scout.

 

"Ohh..." He said instead, letting his head fall back and biting his lip. 

 

Demoman blinked before sitting up and looming over Scout, a knee on either side of his hips and his hands taking the young man by his cheeks.  "Oh?"

 

"O... Oh," Scout agreed, averting his eyes.  His cheeks tinged pink and his hands fidgeted with the sheet beneath them.

 

"... Oh?"  Demo asked again, more insistently.

 

"Y-yeah, I uh... We had a... He uh… he said he knew what was up and I told him it wasn't like that and he asked what I meant because I wasn't denying the stuff he said and I told him that I wasn't like that and he got this real knowing look and patted my back and walked away and I didn't stop him or anything because I don't know what you want the guys to know about us." Scout babbled, shrinking back into the bed a bit, like he was afraid he might anger the man above him.

 

"Oh."  Demo took a moment to absorb and parse through that spiel before pulling back and rubbing his face.  "Oh, bloody hell."  He sighed, shifting to lay beside Scout with a groan.

 

"Y-yeah... Sorry..." Scout retreated to the edge of the bed to give Demo a little space and eyed the hammock slung up in the corner for show.  

 

"Well... We'll just have to fix that tomorrow."  He told Scout, a long, strong arm reaching out to reel him back in.  Demo pressed his lips to Scout's cheek and then his lips.  "We'll see who all Sniper's told, and if he hasn’t, we’ll just explain it to him."  He told Scout between pecks.  "An' if I have to, I'll tell this whole bloody ship you're mine."  He mumbled as he moved down to kiss Scout's neck and rolled his soggy shirt up before tugging him up to get it off.  “ _And_  that you bloody like it.”

 

"I... Really?"  Scout asked, just staring up at Demo before realizing he was trying to get the piece of clothing off and raising his arms quickly.

 

"Mhm, why not?"  Demo mumbled against his skin.

 

Scout was silent, allowing Demo to lave his way across his skin and suck his little marks into it.  After a little while, he finally made a noise and Demo looked up.

 

"What... What're you crying for, love?" Demo asked, sliding up his body to wipe the salty tears away and kiss his cheeks.  

 

"I'm not fuckin' crying." He said in as firm a voice as he could get out.  All things considered, he did pretty well.

 

Demo smiled a little and nuzzled into Scout’s neck.  “Aw… y’like that I care, is that it?”

 

Scout wiggled beneath Demo and pushed at him.  “Don’t just… say stuff like that.  Like you’d say I was yours in a second.”  He told him, turning his face away when the man tried to kiss him again.  “An’ stop smirking at me.  I don’t fuckin’ care, say whatever you want, I don’t—“ Demo caught his lips finally and silenced him with a deep kiss.

 

“Y’don’t care, y’don’t care…” Demo mumbled, kissing down his jaw and pressing a sucking kiss to his neck, lingering to nuzzle at his pulse before working his way back down to his chest to resume his work there when a crack of thunder, loud as a canon, shook the boat. 

 

His remaining bottle of Scrumpy crashed in a pile of glass to the floor, sloshing booze across the planks and soaking the rug.  The candle at his bedside plopped over on its side and rolled toward the edge, but a quick young hand caught it and set it back up.

 

“Bloody hell, what was that?”  Demo pressed Scout back into the bed with a hand on his chest.  “Stay here… put the candle out in case it goes again…” Demo told him, stroking his fingers soothingly down to pat his hip before hopping over the broken mess of glass and tossing Scout his boots before pulling his own on.  “They might need you on deck too, listen for the bell—“

 

The harsh clang of the bell in question cut him off, and Demo rushed out onto the deck without another word.

 

The rain came down harder and the door down to the officers’ quarters was flung open.  Water rushed down the short flight of steps and slicked the floor as Demo ran up onto the deck and glanced around to see what all needed to be done.  He’d heard boots following after him, so he knew Scout was on deck too.  “Head up into the rigging, love, and help get the main sail in—looks like some daft didn’t tie it off correctly!”  He told Scout when he glanced back to see him looking at him expectantly. 

 

Scout nodded before he went loping across the deck to ascend into the rigging.  Demo moved to help with the yardarm that had been ripped from one of the masts—the charred butt of it told him where the lightning had struck.  Heavy and Dell were already heaving at it while Soldier screamed at the helm, giving orders to Sniper and the rest of the crew, making sure that no man had the chance to stand still for even a second.  Demo, Dell and Heavy got the thing shifted and secured against the railing and two other crew members pulled out a gasping, bleeding man with a broken leg.

 

“TAKE BROKEN MAN TO MEDIC,” Heavy shouted before trundling off to direct another portion of the crew. 

 

“Gonna have some work for you in the morning, lad!”  Demo laughed, clapping Dell on the back and eyeing the rigging.  He thought he saw Scout, but through the wind and rain, he couldn’t be sure.  He shouldn’t worry, they’d been through storms before…

 

He started across the deck to help a crew member with hauling his line when the ship began to tilt, a wave rising up to bear down on them.  A canon broke loose and Demo heard the ropes snap… then he felt the full weight of half a ton of iron crashing into him.

 

The water was ice cold, and bit at his nose and throat like a thousand needles.  He blew water out of his nose and mouth, eyes turned up to the dark, sloshing sea above… or was that below…?  Demo suddenly realized that he was still being borne down by the canon.  He shifted and pain shot through his torso.  He immediately stopped—and then realized that he  _needed_  to get out from under the canon.  Pain was better than getting farther from the turbulent surface.  It was already going to be a pain in the ass to get back up there.

 

He wiggled out from under the canon.  It seemed to take forever.  Far too long.  Demo ignored the pain and began struggling toward the surface, working his arms and legs in tandem as sharp pain scoured his torso. 

 

He had to make it back up, had to... His vision was dimming and he saw a solid object flash across his vision-- a shark wouldn't be this close to the surface... Not in a storm like this... Maybe he was farther down than he thought-- and he was sinking again...

 

He smiled at the irony.  He'd been worried about Scout, but he was the one drowning now. He laughed and his lungs filled with water as he waited to die, the pain in his chest fading. 

 

He spent forever in his cold, choking prison before he saw the flash again, closer now.  He saw a pale torso dotted with bruises.  Demo let his eyes slip closed as a pair of arms wrapped around his middle. 

 

The water was suddenly rushing past him and when they broke the surface, his entire body cleared the water, pressed tight against his rescuer.  Were they tied to a rope...?

 

The sudden slam of the surface of the water against his back knocked the last of his consciousness away.

 

There was an insistent, throbbing pain in his chest, his chest was heavy, and he suddenly began retching the water from his lungs.  A pair of hands turned him onto his side and he was allowed to clear his mouth for an inhale before choking up the rest along with a good amount of sour booze and bile.

 

"Fuck fuck fuck thank God, oh thank God, fuck fuck fuck," he could faintly hear Scout chanting, and cold, clawed hands took his face.  Though the touch was soft, his skin still prickled at the touch of the sharp claws’ tips and he drew away slightly, still coughing.  His eye was bleary with the sting of salt water and near asphyxiation, but he could see that it was Scout's hands, but he only knew by following them up to his face—God, his gorgeous, worried face.  His skin was pale, like it had lost its tan, and his hair was different, silky and bright in the calm moonlight.  It wasn’t raining anymore, he realized, and he looked up and all around.  The storm had passed—or just been cut short by some sort of strange magic.  His gaze returned to the hands he’d pulled back from, webbed between the fingers and light blue scales on the backs, winding up to his elbows.  Fins of the same color as his scales and webbing jutted from his forearms and they twitched flat and then out again almost nervously while Scout watched Demo appraise him.  His eyes travelled across to his chest-- the marks he's left were still there, just purple and blue more than a brown or dark red.

 

"Love?" He asked, his eyes dipping to the long, pale, iridescent tail that had taken the place of Scout's legs.  The fins along the sides were blue, but the tail itself was as white as the rest of his skin.

 

He could hear Soldier yelling, but it was muted with water in his ears.  He tilted his head to the side and shook it a bit to get the water out.

 

"GET THAT FUCKING MONSTER OFF MY SHIP.  SIREN!  DECEIVER!  LEADER OF MEN FROM THE PATH OF CONQUEST!"

 

Demo winced as the shock of it all passed and his muted senses came back all at once.

 

Pain in his ribs, pain in his hips and an insistent pulling in his leg muscles, there was a harsh burning in his throat, a gouge on his back... All in all, he'd had worse.

 

Medic fretted about, examining him and attempting to get him to lie back down, but he was still looking, still taking Scout in.

 

Everyone was ignoring Soldier aside from his Quartermaster, who was restraining him with an arm around his chest and a grim look as he watched the crew surrounding Demo, Scout and Medic in a wide, uneasy ring.

 

“You’re… are you okay?”  Scout asked, his voice softer than Demo had ever heard it.  He’d never talked like that in front of the crew.  All of his cheek and boast was gone and replaced with only attention for Demo.

 

“I’ll be fine, love.”  Demo promised, offering him a smile. 

 

“Why the bloody hell’d you save the piker?”  Sniper’s voice came from Demo’s right, and he glanced over to see the man standing with his arms crossed and a look of resentment on his face.  “Finally woulda got you out from under his thumb.”

 

A harsh hiss left Scout, and he struck so quickly that Demo’s muted reactions couldn’t quite catch it, all he saw was Engineer grabbing Scout’s arms and Sniper with a line of blood running from a thin claw mark across his cheek and the side of his nose.

 

“You fuckin’ douche, you think you know everything about everything.  If this short shit would just let me get my teeth in you…” he snarled, his tail lashing about like a trapped serpent’s.

 

“S-Scout…” Demo reached out to clutch his thrashing tail.  Though Medic snapped at him to stay still, he ignored him.

 

Scout hissed and swiveled, dragging Engineer around with him, but the livid rage left his eyes when he saw it was Demo talking to him. 

 

“Th’ little sardine clawed me!”  Sniper growled, wiping blood from his cheek and stepping forward, raising his fist.  “You little brat, I tried to stick up for you!” 

 

Demo scrambled to his feet, an arm around his aching torso as he stumbled forward between his… Scout and the angry navigator. 

 

“Only because you’re sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong,  _mate_.”  It would have been much more intimidating if Demo wasn’t gasping for breath and swaying on his feet.  “Bloody… feckin’ hell, Heavy, just knock Soldier out!”  He shouted, clutching his head as it spun.  Sniper hadn’t even hit him yet, and he was about to go down all on his own.  The crew was stepping forward, though, none of them looking happy about the apparent merman that had been hidden in their midst.  “Scout…” he saw Sniper hesitating now that he was in the way, and the crew was closing in. 

 

He didn’t know what they were planning, but he would  _not_  let his lover become a prisoner again.  He summoned himself, pushed past the queasiness and the throb of his body, desperate for sleep, and turned around to punch Engineer square in the jaw.  The boatswain was knocked back for a moment, his grip on Scout loosened just enough for the merman to rip his arms free at Demo’s order, “go.”

 

He was a flash of pale skin and scales between legs and boots and then he was over the edge of the ship and into the ocean below.  The crew surged after him, flocking at the edge of the ship, and then the calm broke and the maelstrom started up again.  Rain pounded down, boots thudded this way and that as Demo collapsed to the deck, eyes closing on the pale moon as it was reeclipsed by clouds.

 

:::::

 

He stayed until they made port, spending his time watching the waters, hoping to see a glimpse of white beneath the waves.  He spent the entirety of their stay on the little collection of fabled islands swimming alone and watching the ship.  He didn’t know what he would do if Scout did come back, but he missed the kid.  He drank more, slept less, his temper—despite the booze—became worse until Heavy had to remind him with a heavy hand what his duties were on the ship.  He was forcibly sobered, banned from the armory and made to “temporarily” play second hand to Sniper so that someone would have their eye on him at all times.  The two didn’t speak about the budding scar on Sniper’s face, or the words that still hung between them like an unclean wound. 

 

When they pulled the ship around and tied her off, Demo had his things and his small share of what they’d found on the islands.  He was too listless to haggle a share, and what he had in his pouch had been placed in his hand by Heavy and then his fingers curled over it firmly.  It was that same moment that he’d told Heavy he was leaving the ship, and the giant nodded, like he’d already known it was Demo’s decision.

 

He set out with instructions directing him toward a woman who was an expert on the merfolk.  A message scrawled at the bottom told him that she would be the best place to start.  It was signed,  _God’s speed, Sniper._

 

The journey was tedious, and, at first, fruitless.  The woman claimed she didn’t know anything of merfolk and sent him away several times, but Demoman ended up at the same place when he followed Sniper’s instructions.  Maybe he was trying to get back at Demo for their falling out, maybe he still thought he’d been abusing Scout and that his punishment was to travel leagues without a horse only to find he was at a dead end.

 

It seemed too venomous for Sniper, though, and the man had looked almost regretful when he’d given him the sealed envelope with instructions not to open it until the ship had pulled out again.

 

He wanted to resolve their spat without talking about it, and that was just the way Demo let it be.  He didn’t wait to open the note, though.  That would have been a waste of time on a dramatic gesture.

 

It was only when he came he fifth time that the woman allowed him into her home.  It was small and cozy, and he was suddenly aware of just how large and brutish he looked in comparison to the short and stout woman.

 

“What kind of a man are you?  Looking for a mermaid so desperately… it’s unseemly.”  She told him, pulling a chair over for him to sit and bustling over to get the tea kettle from her small hearth. 

 

“I’m not lookin’ for a mermaid, mum, I’m after a merman.”  He told her, accepting the cup of tea she offered him.  “He’s very important to me.”  He told her, finding it strange that he didn’t feel hopeful.  Inside, he just felt tired and lost.

 

“Ah ha…” she nodded, walking over to a book shelf and beginning to scan the spines.  He suddenly realized that they were all hand inked and the leather was soft, as a personal journal would be.  She pulled a small booklet from the end and walked over to sit across from Demo and peer down at it as she flipped the pages. 

 

He caught a glimpse of him—his Scout—and his hand shot forward to flip back to the page rather roughly.  “Sorry…” he breathed when he saw the reproachful look she was giving him, but he felt a warm little tendril of something soothing coil in his stomach as his eye flicked over the dismissive expression, the carefully inked brows and silky, straight hair that framed bright blue eyes and just a touch of pink on his cheeks.  “Did ye draw that?”  He asked, noting the writing around it—it wasn’t in English, Spanish or Gaelic, so he couldn’t read it.

 

“No, my grandmother did.”  She told him, carefully turning the book around so that he could view it.  There were sketches of his arms and his long tail, both coiled and straight, on the next page along with more notes.  “This bit right here…” her finger was old and knotted, but steady as she pointed to a portion of the elaborately scrawled foreign letters, “it says that you must draw your own map to find this merman.”  She told him, but her finger only moved across the first line.

 

“What’s the rest say?”  He asked, his eye trailing over the other three lines beneath the one she’d read.

 

“It’s instructions on how to make your map… and a warning that you mustn’t try to match it to any other, or it won’t lead you to your destination.”  She said, drawing her hand back and beginning to search through a trunk in the corner. 

 

Demo sipped his tea, ignoring that it was bitter and more than terrible.   “So… what are the instructions?”  He asked, putting the cup down after his initial sip and folding his hands on the table.

 

The woman withdrew from the trunk with a roll of rough paper and a simple sheathed dagger. 

 

“You’ll have to bleed for it, dear.”

 

 

:::::

 

It was a small vessel that he could man on his own.  He didn’t give out details about his plans, just that he needed the boat, this was the money he had, and he would take what he could get. 

 

The man let him keep just enough for supplies and a new jacket.  He was going north.  Close to his home, Scotland, but still so far from it—closer than he had been in a decade.

 

The map was hard to understand.   _If_  he was understanding it at all.  It was only a series of blots with smudged lines of blood drawn with the tip of the woman’s dagger.  The blots conformed to a sort of shape, wider at the top and tapering just barely with a cluster in the middle at the bottom.  In the top left corner, a compass was drawn, also in his blood, and an X right in the middle of the looser cluster at the top, through a single blot. 

 

There was a short tick on the compass in the top.  According to the woman, it was the direction he needed to go from where he was upon making the map.

 

He couldn’t look at another map, so he started calculating on his way from the port.

 

He stared at the map restlessly, effortlessly working the sail and keeping an eye on the stars at night.  He slept rarely, drank only tea no matter how much he wanted to down a bottle of booze.  He had to be aware of himself.  He could drink himself to death when he reached the bloody island and found nothing.

 

It wasn’t long until it was freezing during the nights and brisk during the day.  The rain started after a week and didn’t stop until it had turned into a day of sleet as well. 

 

Demo was miserable.  He didn’t know why Scout would be this far north, didn’t know if he would die of hypothermia before he reached the island that might not even exist.  He didn’t see land for three days, was tossed around by the waves and wind and almost didn’t see the point of moving forward anymore at one point.  He sat down in the hold where it was warmest, swathed in blankets and letting the ship go wherever it pleased in exchange for an hour of rest from peering into the damned icy waters, watching for a man who wouldn’t be there, looking for an island that might not even be there… it was all useless.

 

He held the map in his hands, studying the memorized pattern, the sketches and bits of calculation he’d made on it.  All of it was for nothing. 

 

And with that realization, he drifted to sleep and let the map slip from his hands.

 

The cold water on his ankles and ass was what woke him, and Demoman jolted to alertness, suddenly aware of an insistent creaking that wasn’t wood rubbing against wood.   He glanced around blearily and saw water bubbling through a crack in his hull.  “What the feck is there to  _run into_  out here?”  He croaked, feeling more resigned than angry.  He suddenly realized that his map was on the floor and it was sodden.  He plunged his hand into the water and pulled it out, shaking his head and whispering curses like they were prayers.

 

The paper was clean.

 

Demo hung his head to his knees for several minutes, swallowing the budding lump in his throat.  He began to shiver as the water continued to flood his boat.

 

He dropped the wet map back into the icy water and stood, making his way to the stairs while still wrapped in his blankets.  His breath clouded as he exited, and the edges of his blanket began to stiffen with ice as he stood still, taking in the island of ice and rock he’d run into.  He shook the damp blankets off his shoulders and unwound a length of rope before jumping off onto the rocks and beginning to shove the boat off the rocks. 

 

Once he got it back off into the water, he lead it around to the sallow shore several hundred meters down the rock line and just prayed that it would stay afloat until he could drag it up into the shallows.  He slipped and skidded over the rocks, dug in his heels and almost didn’t get the blasted thing up before it sunk even lower.  The hull scraped across the rocks and he reluctantly collapsed back on the rocks with a groan. 

 

“Bloody hell…” he sighed, his voice sounding foreign to his own ears in the otherwise quiet island.

 

He closed his eyes and he saw the map’s blots again.  The X throbbed in the foreground, mocking him as his head pounded and his heart throbbed painfully in his chest.

 

“Oh bloody… feckin’…  _hell_.”  His voice broke in a sob and he clenched his eye shut and sucked in deep, hard breaths, trying to fight the emotions, trying not to lose it on an unfamiliar island in the middle of nowhere chasing the shadow of a love that he would never hold in his arms again.  The blots taunted him still, the X growing until it consumed the map and then shrunk back down to nonexistence, then it grew again until he opened his eye to keep it from mocking him—and all he could see was bright blue eyes, pale skin and silky tresses of hair.

 

“God, I don’t know what I prefer, that blasted map mocking me or  _you_.”  He hissed, baring his teeth at the hallucination and sitting up quickly, hoping it would dissipated—and cracking his head against Scout’s.

 

“Ow, you fuckin’ dumbshit, what are you talking about?”  Scout rubbed his forehead and slipped farther away from him, his body moving in a serpentine motion across the rocks, slithering him away from Demo.

 

Demo stared at Scout, eye wide and mouth half agape.

 

“What?”  Scout asked, his mouth twisting in a confused frown.

 

“I… found you.”  He breathed, unable to look away from his face.

 

Scout’s face softened and his sharp fangs chewed on his lip for a moment before he slipped a little closer.  “When was the last time you ate something?”  He asked, coming closer still and feeling of Demo’s jacket and pants.  “Fuck, everything you’re wearing is freezing, what the fuck are you thinking coming up here?”  He asked, scowling and dragging Demo up to his feet before leading him off across the rocks.  His serpentine body cut a swathe across the frost on the shore, and Demo’s eye followed it up to his back.  He stopped walking, recognizing the bruises he’d left.

 

There was a cluster in the middle of his lower back, just above the dip and scant inches from where his tail started.  He followed them up to a single dark one in the middle of his upper back and eyed the clusters around on his shoulder blades and the back of his ribcage.

 

“Hey, why’re you stopping?  You wanna freeze to death?”  Scout asked, more desperation than irritation in his voice.  He stiffened when Demo hugged him, and seemed reluctant to return the embrace before his arms came up around him.  “Why are you here?”  He asked, his voice low, logged with weeks of unshed tears.

 

“I’m a pirate, love.”  Demo murmured against his neck, the gills there tickling his lips as he gently pressed a kiss to them.  “I search for treasure… And my greatest map, my favorite treasure…”  His hand slid up Scout’s back to finger the central mark, right over his heart.  “My treasure map was on your skin, and I followed it right to you.”  He explained, though it wasn’t much of one.

 

Scout stared up at Demo, his brows pulled together in confusion before he pulled away, gently against the pull of Demo’s clutching hands.  He took Demo’s hand to assure him he wasn’t going anywhere and began leading him again, significantly less mad at him.

 

“C’mon, I have a house here… sounds like you’ve got another story to tell me.”  He told Demo with a smile.

 

“Aye, love.”  Demo returned the smile and pulled his hand up to kiss the back.  “That I do.”


End file.
